Undertow
by OutlawQueenLuvr
Summary: Missing Year: This place still makes her want to claw the skin off her bones, to foolishly beg that there might still be some part of her untouched by darkness. But she has burned too many wicker homes into ashes, splashed too much blood across the landscape – she knows better than to beg for forgiveness that will not come.


**AN:** I wrote this for a dear friend for her birthday, though I wasn't able to finish it on the actual day. Here it is, finally done. Many thanks and lots of kisses and hugs to Nina, Christina, Em, and Jessie for pushing me to write better, try harder, and capture one of the most honest and powerful moments I think I've ever written.

Happy (belated) Birthday, Allison.

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, just the way these words weaved together.

Warning: Vague suicidal ideation

* * *

Undertow: Ocean | cover | steady

This place still makes her want to claw the skin off her bones, to foolishly beg that there might still be some part of her untouched by darkness. But she has burned too many wicker homes into ashes, splashed too much blood across the landscape – she knows better than to beg for forgiveness that will not come.

A foolish girl once stood on this cliffside, staring out over the coastline as salty waves thrashed at the rocks and the wind whipped wisps of hair around a young face not quite hardened by life's unexpected blows – deserved blows, she tells herself. But she is foolish no more. New scars are etched into her soul now, marring her skin as her heels plant firmly on solid stone and her toes tip over the edge, a perilous distance of air between them and the churning ocean below.

Stinging rain burns her eyes, the storm howls, and the tempest does nothing to drown out the haunting screams inside her head. She is harder now... beaten.

Forty years have come and gone, and she can still feel the Imp's mock-warning slither up her spine: _The darkness likes how you taste, dearie._

She feels it now, crawling beneath the surface of nicks and bruises, poison oozing through her veins, tarring up her blood, chasing after her faster than she can outrun it. There's no escape – no matter what she does, no matter how much good she tries to do, no matter how hard she fights to be more for her son, even if that means letting him go.

It is not enough.

It is never enough.

" _When will it be enough, Regina?" Daniel turns away from her, and something cracks in her chest, making it hard for her to breathe, but she keeps pushing, and pushing, and pushing, testing every last limit he has in the hopes that one day he will finally get it, finally understand why she cannot put all of her faith in this – in their love. She has Mother, too, and neither on its own will ever be enough._

" _Just one more season, Daniel. That's all I'm asking for."_

" _Yes, and it was one season before that. She makes you miserable, and you're letting her make you do something you don't want to do. Again. Just say no. Tell her you don't want to go to court for summer lessons."_

" _I can't do that, you know how she is."_

" _So the alternative is to not see each other, for an entire season? That's better?"_

" _I didn't say it was better, I just… it's Mother. I can't just—" Daniel's gaze darts past her, and she frowns, following him as he steps quietly to the double doors that they left ajar. She gasps when she spies what has him standing so rigidly, and then Mother's voice prickles at the hairs on the back of her neck._

" _Regina!" Mother calls._

 _Daniel steps away from her, pivoting briskly and practically racing toward the back exit of the stables even though Mother is still far away enough that they have time to say goodbye._

" _Daniel, wait," Regina pleads, reaching for his arm. "Please, don't leave yet."_

 _His brow furrows, and he shakes his head. "I have work I need to finish... for your mother. And she's calling you. Wouldn't want her to catch you with the stable boy."_

 _She grips his arm tighter, tugs him closer. "I want you," she insists, dropping her voice to a low murmur._

 _He glances down at her hand, just for a second, but there is a storm in his eyes, sadness and sorrow when he looks back up at her. "You want her, too," he points out, surprisingly gentle. "And the thing is, Regina, I would never ask you to choose. She would."_

She didn't, though – Mother never actually gave her the choice, and somewhere in the dark, twisted parts of her, Regina thinks that she should be grateful. Because he would have left her, Daniel, if things had gone a little differently, if Mother hadn't— He'd have left her, because all she ever does is push people away.

She teeters closer to the edge.

Regina closes her eyes, tries to shut out the roar of the sea below, but she doesn't succeed at dimming the roar raging inside her head. Eyes shut, so many things scream to the forefront – Daniel's smiling gaze, calloused palms, the scent of hay, sweat, and summer's sun clinging to his skin.

Snow spoke false promises and hope into her bleeding heart before helping her put it back inside her chest, but a year has passed, and still they are no closer to getting back to Henry and Emma. Hope. What good is hope to her when it has never, not once, answered any of her calls?

No. Hope has never been useful to Regina. With no foothold to root itself into her heart, hope whirls away as carelessly as a dandelion seed caught in the wind.

Heat flares at her back, and her attention turns just as the thief tosses another dry log into the fire at the center of their makeshift camp. Another crack of lightning flashes through the sky, and guilt percolates in her belly. Rain beats against the cliffside, silhouetted trees violently bend beneath the wind's howling anger, and the cold drip, drip, dripping of rainwater pings off rock, and granite, and iron ore – a cacophony of sound drowning out the wild warring between Regina's head and her heart.

She's been standing here with her back turned to him – a storm raging outside while another storm of a different sort rages within – and try as she might, she can't quiet the voices inside her head.

The one that breaks for Daniel.

The one that weeps for Henry.

The one that whispers for her to help Snow.

The one that screams for loved ones lost, and friendships burned.

" _That curse isn't going to fix this, Regina. It can't bring your stable boy—"_

" _Don't you dare!" She rounds on Maleficent, venom spitting from her tongue as she lunges for her friend._

" _Revenge isn't the answer. It won't be enough." Maleficent sags to her knees, the metal wrappings of Regina's restraints tightening around her._

 _A throaty cackle bubbles up out of Regina's mouth. Nothing she does is ever enough, she is never enough._

" _I know better than anyone, little one. I learned that from you."_

 _Face to face, a breath between them, so much rage boiling in her veins, she can feel it trembling to get out._

 _But... there is fear there, too. Fear that maybe, just maybe, Maleficent is right. Fear that the rolled up piece of parchment in her hand won't be enough. Fear that no matter what she does, all she will ever have is anger._

 _But she doesn't have a choice now, if she stops, if she walks out of here without the one thing she needs to finally destroy Snow White…_

" _It's going to leave a hole in your heart," Maleficent says, and Regina bites back the words burning at her throat: too late._

 _She doesn't know how to walk away from the Evil Queen._

" _Mine," she remarks bitterly, "or yours?"_

The sky churns above, dark clouds roll, cracks of lightning and clacks of thunder jar her eyes back open, but it's her dragon she thinks of, brooding in a den, sulfur singeing the hairs inside her nose, the roughness of scales and freedom beneath the softness of her fingertips.

Thunder booms again, and it's Henry this time, pudgy cheeks, and footie onesies, and joy born from ten tiny fingers gripping around her thumbs, love knocking oxygen out of her lungs—

"Milady?"

She startles, spins on instinct to the sight of a water canvas in his outstretched hand.

"Apologies," he offers, a sheepish grin teasing at the corner of his mouth.

She rolls her eyes, snatching the offering away from him, but says nothing before gulping down a drink. She doesn't owe him anything (maybe she does). She still doesn't understand why he's here, why he came. Well... that's not quite true, she supposes. His dimple-cheeked child had a little to do with that, with his _"Papa, pleassse, you have to go with my majesty."_

She'd been about to refuse the help, had started to shake her head. _"Absolutely not."_

But then. _"Of course, my boy" —_ and then he'd caught her staring at him slack-jawed and said— _"We can't let the Queen go off on her own, now can we?"_

There had been a look in his eyes then, unsettling and unreadable, and it tugged at something deep in her chest. She didn't have time to linger on it long, for not two minutes after, Snow had insisted he accompany her.

Why he let his son so easily sway him into coming with her when he _clearly_ doesn't want to be here is beyond her. He's barely said a word to her (granted, she's barely let him – had cut him off mid- _Milady, if you would just let me hel—_ no less than eleven times), and she knows, she absolutely knows that Snow had something to do with his willingness to come on this journey. They're not in the forest anymore; his tracking skills are less useful here where gray granite and salty sea keep footprints invisible and predators untraceable. He's out of his element on the coast, and truth be told, she just doesn't understand _why_.Why did he come all this way, why did he choose to leave his son to come with her? The small sliver of herself that's willing to rationalize his choice acknowledges that his son is safe, with people who love him; he isn't in danger.

She'd never leave Henry (not unless she was forced – and she _was_ forced… wasn't she?), would never let him out of her sight if she ever saw him again. But she won't see him again; Snow's platitudes of hope and happy endings fall short, and she's not foolish enough to put a quarter into that jar of heartbreaking agony.

No. She knows her fate. And Henry… he's safe. Away from her, but safe – that's the most she _can_ hold onto now.

It's part of the cost that must be paid.

" _Mom, please, please," Henry begs her, hands fisting at the back of her coat as he hugs her tighter. "There has to be another way."_

 _Tears carve a path down her baby boy's cheeks, and she tilts her head back to keep her own tears at bay, a flood gate ready to burst with each quiver of his chin, each muffled plea against her chest for her to stay with him. But it's no use: tears fall, the right words evade her, and all she can think to do is comb her fingers through his hair and press her lips to the crown of his head._

" _I wish I could, Henry." Her voice cracks; tears wet her lips._

 _He will be taller than her soon —her face twists in agony and she breathes her baby in, stitching every part of him into her memory (that's all she'll have left of him soon)— and she realizes all at once that she is going to miss it. The rest of his firsts – high school and college, the first person he'll ever love, the first heartbreak he'll ever have, his triumphs, his failures – she is going to miss everything._

 _And it is all her fault._

 _Everything she wants comes at a cost, and she is always the one to pay it._

" _I d-don't want you to go," he cries, between hiccoughing breaths, and a great searing pain rips through her heart._

 _This time, her sweet boy is having to pay for her mistakes, too. She wishes she could stay with him, wishes with trembling hands and shuddering breaths that she did not have to leave him._

 _But she does._

 _And she has no one to blame but herself._

:.:

Regina has been worrisomely quiet, even for her.

Robin knows she's not happy that he came with her; she's made that perfectly clear with every sharpened insult and murderous glare. But he's here, he's not going anywhere, and he just wants to help her see that someone cares about what happens to her. If she would just stop being so damned stubborn. Or better yet, if she'd just back away from that ledge, anxiety and dread would stop pooling in his gut.

He'd stoked the fire from embers to flame and watched as she stared out the mouth of the cave, thinking about only the gods know what, and all he'd wanted to do was ease away that hard-set worry-line above her brow. Water would do, he decided, and even that seems to have pissed her off.

But he can still hear his lad's sweet voice in his head. _"Papa, please. Protect my majesty."_ Can still see the way his son had quivered his lower lip, clasped his hands together, and stared up at him from beneath the delicate lashes he'd inherited from Marian. Robin had grinned, chuckled even, and said, _Of course_. Though, truth be told, he'd already had a satchel packed and new arrows fletched in his quiver.

He knows how she is, Regina. Reckless, careless, thoughtless with herself when she's being pigheaded and stubborn, more often than not walking headfirst into danger without a plan. He'd wanted to go with her; Roland's request was just an easy excuse to say yes. And even that – Roland asking him to watch after Regina – soured her already sullen mood. This is going to be a long journey if he doesn't find a way to get Regina to stop looking at him like he's some great pebble in her boot.

Not a few moments later, she's rolling her eyes at him and turning her nose up at his water, even as she takes it and drinks, deeply. Her not so subtle dismissal of him doesn't grate the way he thinks she meant it to, not when what he'd really wanted has been accomplished.

She's away from that damned ledge.

Water gulps down the column of her throat, her breasts rise and fall in slow, easy breaths, and it's not the first time he has been pleasantly distracted by her plunging necklines and the suppleness of her curves. Not the first time he's held his breath in anticipation for some quick-witted remark or snarky comment to fill the silence between them.

What he gets is entirely unexpected.

"Why are you even here?" she asks, handing him back his water canvas and wiping off her lips with the back of her hand.

There's a part of him that wants to just say it, and another that's equally afraid of spooking her further away, so he begins with a half-truth. "Roland asked me to—"

But she's quicker than that, and feeling combative, it seems. "We both know you don't want to be here, _thief_ , so do me the courtesy of not wasting a moment more of my time with another lie."

"I'm not—" He shakes his head at the attempted dig and extends his hand out toward her, but then fists his fingers at his side instead. She's on edge, has been since they left the castle two days ago; they're both tired, weary, and she's right. There's no point in coloring the truth, so he tells her: "I mean I do. Want to be here. That's not a lie."

"Why?" Her voice goes quiet, and he has to take a step closer to hear her over the storm raging outside. Her brow furrows in that way that makes something deep in his gut churn up, that makes him wish he could just… thread his fingers into her hair and soothe away her worry and fear.

Robin takes another step toward her, just one step, and bites his lower lip. "I wanted to make sure you were safe," he says, letting the words settle, and all of a sudden the air in the cave feels uncomfortably heavy, like a winter cape during the last days of the warm season.

"W-why ever would you want that?" Her hand rests over her stomach now, her face softens around her eyes. She's nervous, cautiously guarded; he can see it in the pause of her breath, in the subtle quiver of her voice.

This, if ever there was such a thing as perfect timing, is a gift he's not been given before. Time with her. To think, to slow down their conversation, to not worry about an interruption or a crisis requiring a magical solution – one only she can resolve.

It's just them.

Just she and him.

So he says, "Because you being safe... matters to me."

:.:

There has to be more to it than that. An ulterior motive. He wants something. He has to. No one has ever just wanted to make sure she was safe. Not since Daniel. She has spent decades being manipulated and used by others – her mother, Rumplestiltskin. She has enemies by the handfuls, villages she has lain waste to, neighboring kings who thought they could weasel their way into her bed only to usurp her after Leopold died. So what is it? What does he want? For the last two days, he's done nothing but brood and ignore her, so there has to be something, but try as she might, she can't figure out what _he_ wants from her.

"Why do you care about what happens to me?"

She wonders if her eyes are betraying her, showing him that she's fighting against a decision, trying to resist all the ways in which he's bewitched her, which is foolish. She's the one with the power of the universe at her fingertips, and yet, there are moments like these where she feels helplessly drawn to him – the warm blue of his eyes, the kindness of his dimpled smile when he's playing with his son, the fierceness of his loyalty to his men.

Her heart flutters as the thief bites his lower lip and furrows his brow, and before she knows it, she's wondering about what it might be like to bite _his_ lower lip.

And that's just it, that thought right there.

She spent her youth trying to find freedom, and then she met Daniel, and he'd been the first to teach her about hope. When he died, that hope died with him, and slowly she started building up her walls, creating the Evil Queen to protect herself when she felt powerless to do so, and then she met Maleficent… and, if the Evil Queen had known how to do one thing exceptionally well, it was to destroy everything she touched.

Daddy.

Graham.

Henry...

She doesn't want to seal Rob— the thief to that fate. He has a son, a makeshift family just like she had with Henry (has, now, with the Charmings, though she'd never admit it to anyone aloud). Family is too important; it has to be protected.

So she dug in her heels, called him names (still feels so much like a five-year-old intentionally picking unnecessary fights, but she keeps doing it anyway, for him, and for Roland, saving them from what happens to everyone she's ever… cared about), pushed him away – or at least she has been trying. He's so goddamned stubborn, so eager to help. That's all he's done since they first met – infuriating as it is – and it is that eagerness to help, to make sure she's drinking water, to volunteer to help her break into Rumplestiltskin's cliffside fortress (for which she still doesn't have a plan yet), that makes her want to know: "Ro— Robin, _why_ do you care about what happens to me?"

The voices are shouting in her head again, sounding suspiciously like Mother screaming how stupid she is for asking him that, how incredibly idiotic it was.

Something changes then, in his gaze, his light blues shifting into a dark swirling sea of cerulean; he takes a step closer, and she didn't notice before just how incredibly close he already was. The chill of the wind at her back makes her shiver; he takes another step closer, and he's not touching her, not quite, but it's enough that she can _feel_ him. Feel the heat caught between them.

"I..." His gaze locks with hers, and for the first time, she's able to really look into his eyes, flecks of gray and gold sparkle within a sea of blue, and she sees herself staring back at her in his irises, sees what perhaps he sees. She's a mess, wet hair plastered to her temples, her riding pants, tunic, and corset drenched all the way through. She should be freezing, but she isn't. Not nearly. She's warm, stifled, feels like she can't breathe, a fever races across her skin and—

Robin doesn't speak. Never finishes what he'd started to say, and it has fissures of doubt bleeding into her chest, anger flushing her cheeks. "You know what, forget it," she sneers, feeling incredibly ridiculous.

She isn't meant for happy endings; she knows that now.

Her fate was sealed long ago.

She's about to turn away (not that she can go anywhere, they're stuck in this cave until the storm passes), when he reaches up, slowly, gently, brushes the pad of his thumb against the hinge of her jaw, and sweeps a wet strand of hair away from her face.

 _She wipes sweat away from her forehead with her sleeve and winces, a sharp stabbing ray of sunlight jabs at her eyes._

" _Here, let me," Snow offers, pulling out her waterskin and wetting a rag she's pulled out from her rucksack. She hands the rag to Regina – to Wilma – and smiles. "We have to keep moving, I don't feel safe with us out in the open like this."_

 _Regina nods, mouth agape as she stares at the waterskin in her hand and limps after the bandit princess._

 _She hasn't felt real kindness in years, least of all at the hands of Snow White. It feels foreign, good… Snow unknowingly is offering the 'Evil' Queen a second chance at being a family again, and she finds that she wants that; more than anything, she wants to be a family again. Wants to be happy._

 _For the first time since the king's funeral, she wonders about a possibility she thought had died at midnight in the stables, if she can take back what was once stolen from her._

 _But the lifeline does not last long, is snatched away by a choice she made for the sake of revenge as she halts abruptly next to Snow at the top of the hill, a hoard of bodies paving the way down._

" _I take it back. I could never forgive her," Snow cries in horror. And in her misguided desperation, Regina takes a step toward her, revealing her secret and sealing her fate._

 _Family slips through her fingers again, and her anger renews as she fights back unwanted tears._

"I care about _you_ , Regina," Robin says, plainly, sincerely, tucking that strand of hair behind her ear and licking his lower lip.

His touch lingers there for a moment, fingers combing her hair back and away from her face, tenderly, and she will not cry, absolutely refuses to as he grins at her, his dimples deepening in that way that makes her want to lean further into him than she already is. But the voices grow louder still, telling her to push back, to keep him safe, to protect him from her and the death and decay that follow her footsteps.

To take a step back, and fall.

She has been pushing and pushing and pushing him away, and the stubborn fool has been pushing back _at_ her just as hard, but it doesn't matter what he sees. She can't be saved, there's nothing worth trying to salvage, and the second she starts to buy into his mentality that there is something worthwhile in her is the second the world falls out from under her feet.

Usually this is where she'd have some sharp remark at the ready, more than willing and able to wipe that pleased little smirk off his face, but…

He could kiss her, now, if he wanted to kiss her. She'd let him, sink into it now more than ever.

She almost wants him to.

She does want him to.

Expects him to.

But he doesn't.

Instead he does a second unexpected thing today.

He gives her space.

"I care about you, milady," he whispers, voice low and smoky over her senses like aged whiskey. His Adam's apple glides up and down his throat, and he's… not going to kiss her. He's standing there, smelling like sweat, and pine, and the fresh scent of rain, and she should be complaining, she should be scoffing at him, telling him to go bathe in the river so he's more presentable to be in a Queen's presence, and yet, here she goddamned is, wanting him to kiss her, really, really _kiss_ her.

And he isn't going to, and she can't have that, she's spent all this time fighting the pull of him, talking herself out of being with him, pushing away his kindness and smiles with insults and late night guard duty with the sleepy dwarf, anything she can do to get him to just leave her alone, and it has not worked one fucking iota, and it has all been for him, for his safety, for his son, for their fates that she so desperately wants to protect. And now – now that she wants him, now that she's ready… he cares about her. He wants her to be safe. No one has ever just wanted her to be safe, no one has ever just wanted to _be there_ for her.

" _Wait, Emma," she says, high heels clacking against the concrete as she rushes to catch up to her. Regina watches as Emma lets her hand fall away from the door handle to her deathtrap on wheels and turns to face her. "I promise you, I did not kill Archie."_

 _She doesn't expect Emma to believe her, but Regina has to say it anyway. Needs to say it before she goes home to the quiet, hollow hallways of her mansion and empty rooms that were once filled with laughter and now overflow with memories of her sweet little prince._

" _I believe you, Regina," Emma reassures her, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth._

" _You do?"_

" _You wouldn't be out here if I didn't." Emma nods toward the closed up station behind them. "You know, you and I… we aren't that different. I know what it's like to make the same type of choices over and over again. I know what it's like to want to change, to have to prove myself to people who don't believe that I have it in me. And I know you're trying to change for Henry_ – _I see it. I'm trying to do the same. For him. So yeah, I do believe you."_

He does.

Robin does.

Thunder booms outside, a crack of lightning streaks through the sky, and what she does next is the third surprise of the day: Regina grabs the collar of Robin's shirt and crushes his lips to hers.

He tastes like sunshine punching through clouds on a spring day, his calloused palm coasting over the smooth skin at the nape of her neck. Robin weaves his fingers into her hair there and she moans, her heart racing, gooseflesh peppering over her skin. She's not sure if her wet clothes have finally chilled her to the bone, or if it's the way Robin is trailing kisses down her throat, across her collarbone, but a shiver races up her spine. His tongue teases out in a swirl, and she moans his name. He does it again, as she arches her back, chest pressing into him, and she never wants to come down from this, just wants to stay right here, forever, drinking in his throaty groans, his heavy breathing, the rasp of his " _Oh gods, Regina."_

She can't get enough of him, of this, of them.

Why did she wait so long to do this?

The gruff roughness of his stubble against her throat makes her tremble, quiets out the sound of the beating rain and thrashing of the storm behind her. Her hand goes lax where it's been gripping his shirt as he breaks the kiss, breath ghosting over her lips. Her fingers fall, palm coming to rest over the warmth of his chest, his heartbeat steady like a drum and _I just want to be happy_ and _I believe, given the chance, we can find happiness together_ and _the light vanishes from Daddy's eyes_ and oh, right, that's why.

Something she has done, or something she will do is going to push him away, she knows it. That's the way it always goes, isn't it?

"Are you sure this is what you want?" he whispers, his lips brushing against her cheek next – and there's that pesky thoughtfulness, that irritating urge to be honorable again. He's barely touching her, but he is all around her, every part of her body on fire.

"Or this?" His lips draw a gasp out of her like moonlight calls to fireflies.

"Or this?" His question teases over her mouth as he gently nips at her lower lip, her heart beating faster and faster as Robin's hands trail warmth over her skin.

"Or this, milady?" There's too much talking, that breath between them a chasm that needs to be crossed; she has wanted to kiss him, nibble that smirk off of his lips for weeks now, has been lying to herself about the truth. But the _truth_ is holding her in his steady arms, kissing her gently, stirring a yearning deep in her belly, and it's here, he's here, reaching up and threading his fingers into her rain-drenched hair, and it is not enough.

 _The choice is yours_ , and mess though she is, in his eyes – in Robin's and his son's – she is, for once, _enough_.

"Shut up and kiss me, thief."

Regina knots her fists into his shirt and pulls his mouth to hers again, teeth knocking together, and it bites, but not as hard as the Evil Queen's gnashing doubt bites at her insides.

Whatever words he had left to say she steals with feverish kiss after feverish kiss.

He groans softly, low in his throat, and gathers her against him, fingers tangling further into her hair. A surging flood of urgency grips her vice-like and she wraps her arms around Robin's neck, clinging to him like he is a deeply-rooted tree in a whirling, swaying world. Tasting him is like learning how to breathe, and drowning all at once, because this is not who she is, this is not how her life is. She is mistake upon mistake upon mistake, buried so far beneath them that there's no getting out from under them. No escape, no second chances. It is too late for her; happiness does not smell like pine and leather, does not sound like a father's hearty laugh, does not feel like an arrow slicing past her to save her from one of Rumplestiltskin's traps.

And yet—

Robin's kisses draw something out of her with each soft pass of his thumb against her cheek, with the swipe of his tongue at the seam of her lips. Opening up to him feels as natural as gasping for air after nearly drowning. She rocks him forward, and with each new step away from the roaring precipice behind her, the voices quiet to a dull hum inside Regina's head.

Robin presses his forehead to hers, her palms slide down his chest, and this time when her heels plant firmly on the ground, she feels something a little bit like hope bloom deep in her chest.

And she wonders if maybe this, for now, might just be enough.


End file.
